Thanksgiving in Cambodia

So as all of you know, last week was Thanksgiving.  Being in Cambodia, I was wondering how I would be celebrating this year.  Obviously Thanksgiving is very much an American holiday and so we actually decided to share the festivities with some Khmer people, just to show them what Thanksgiving is to us and some of the traditions that we have back home.

There is quite a big community of American's that are working for NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) here in Cambodia so we all collaborated to make a Thanksgiving feast with many of the typical dishes we would have at home.  We actually had quite the feast including mashed potatoes, green beans, stewed carrots, stuffing, biscuits, corn, and chicken (in replacement of the turkey, which I wasn't complaining about).  Dessert even consisted of pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread with ice cream.  The mashed potatoes were my job, but since we didn't really have the means to make gravy, I made garlic cheese mashed potatoes which turned out to be a huge hit.  I went over to Aimee's house to cook before the festivities began, which made it even better to have someone to cook with.

It was funny to watch some of the Khmer people try our food from home.  Things like stuffing just were odd to them and many of them passed.  We even had a hand drawn turkey on some butcher paper on the wall where everyone wrote what they were thankful for.  Overall, it was a great replacement for Thanksgiving at home and it was a lot of fun to show the Khmer people some of our culture.  Here are some pictures from the evening!

18 potatoes to peel, boil & mash..... with not really the right utensils = a daunting task & chunky mashed potatoes

Here are the potatoes in the process & yes that is Aimee's face barely making it into the shot

So earlier that day I had learned to drive a moto, and thanks to my roomate Maria in letting me use her moto, I strapped my pot of mashed potatoes to the back of my moto and was off to the Thanksgiving party.  In Cambodia, strapping stuff on the back of your moto is very typical.  I can't tell you some of the crazy things I've seen strapped on the back of motos!

Aimee & Pipor on their way to the party

Our feast.... on the ground of course!

Dessert!

So there you have it!  That's what I did on my Thanksgiving!  It actually made it much easier to not miss home (not to say that I don't miss you all).  Hope everyone had a great holiday!